These are the rules and regulations that ALL members
must meet and abide with in The Garden of Friendship.
These rules are the foundation of our group. By displaying
your Proud Member plaque and becoming a member of GOF, you
represent us and must therefore abide by the rules of the group.
Failure to do so may result in termination of your membership.
BEFORE you complete the membership application, please read the
GOF Rules and Regulations. If after reading our guidelines,
you are still interested in joining our group, please complete
the membership application form. By applying for membership in GOF, you are agreeing to these
Rules and Regulations.
1. The Garden of Friendship is a diverse
group and welcomes all men and women to apply. The only restriction is
that members must be at least 18 years of age.
2.
All members are
required to use the name they choose as their Garden name in all email or
guestbook signings done on behalf of the Garden as well as in committee mail.
3. You MUST have a personal website to qualify
for membership. Sites that are strictly blogging or commercial sites will not be
considered.
4. All sites submitted must be family
friendly websites. Sites containing profanity or pornography will
NOT be permitted, nor will sites displaying racism, hatred, violence, or
sites promoting illegal activity. There will be no association with
any sites that may be offensive to the general public or a threat to members.
5. Sites submitted must have content
that will interest the average internet surfer. We do not have specific
regulations pertaining to the content of submitted sites, but do require
more than a list of links and ads or a commercial site.
While we stress
diversity here in the Garden of Friendship, we ask that applicants who have a
foreign language website have an English version of your site or an English
translator available so that everyone in the Garden of Friendship can visit and
enjoy your website! We do reserve the right to deny an application
that we feel does not comply with our Charter and Our Creed, or contain
appropriate content.
6. In order to remain a member of this group, you
must be a member of at least one GOF committee, and you must be ACTIVE on all
the committees you choose to join. All members who are inactive for a period over 30 days will have their membership revoked. The Garden does allow members to take up to a 30 day LOA. Requests for over 30 days will be handled at the discretion of the Garden Keepers. The Garden Keepers also reserve the right to limit any members they feel may be abusing this policy. The Garden of Friendship asks that all members refrain from posting to our mailing lists while on Leave of Absence. The only exception to this would be members who are grieving the loss of a loved one may post to our Grief Support List. Members are not eligible to participate in our Games and Events while they are on Leave of Absence.
7. All members MUST display their Proud Member Plaque on their personal website and it must be linked back to the Garden (http://www.gardenoffriendship.org) The Proud Member plaque must be displayed in it's original size, 234 x 289 pixels. All members MUST also join the main Garden of Friendship webring which unites our members in a circle of Friendship. Membership in our other webrings is optional, depending on your site's content. Members are allowed 14 days upon membership approval to have the ring fragment and Proud Member plaque up on the site.
8. Respect other members of G.O.F.
You must treat every member as you wish to be treated, in a fair and caring
manner. Any member that abuses another member in any way will immediately be removed from the group.
9. As a member of G.O.F., you agree
to participate in mandatory mailing lists from your committee(s) and the main
G.O.F. mailing list which is used to make important announcements about the
Garden. Other
mailing lists are considered optional. These committee mailing lists
are restricted to committee business and must NOT be used for Spam, vote requests,
page announcements, chat, etc. There is not to be any use of stationary.
Music files are NOT to be embedded in messages sent through our Committee Lists. The use of sigtags is acceptable. Failure to comply with the rules for committee
mailing lists by sending unrelated e-mail through the committee lists will
first result in a warning message. If messages continue to be posted through
Yahoogroups, your access to the mailing list may be restricted.
10. If you break any of the Garden of
Friendship rules, you will be dealt with by either The Grievance Judge
or The Garden Keepers. We will always try to treat members fairly and equally,
but will not tolerate misconduct. We must keep the best interest
of GOF in mind.
11. Upon membership approval, you must join the
main Garden of Friendship webring. You must have your webring fragment
placed on your website within 14 days of your join date. In addition we
also have several other webrings which will help increase traffic to your
site.
12. Members are not permitted to use the
Garden of Friendship Website or Membership Listing to recruit members for other
groups. Failure to comply will result in termination of your membership.
13. You may not collect our members e-mail
addresses for your own personal mailing list without their consent.
14. Members who leave the Garden of Friendship (either through resignation or
removal) must wait a period of 3 (three) months before they may reapply for
Membership.
15. Members who are removed or resign from the
Garden may return or reapply for membership up to a total of 3 (three times)
Once you have been a member and been removed three times, your membership in
the Garden will be permanently revoked and you may not reapply for membership.
